Having once made my living managing ship construction and repair projects, all I can say is, “oops.” It is almost inconceivable that the Odense Shipyard’s quality assurance inspectors, the owner’s inspectors and the inspectors from the American Bureau of Shipping, the classification society which classed the ship, all missed the lack of sealing of the bulkhead penetrations which would allow the sort of flooding that disabled the Emma Mærsk. The Emma Mærsk is one of eight “E-Class” 14,770 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container ships built at Odense. Mærsk has reportedly found the same lack of watertight integrity in the bulkhead penetrations on other ships in the E-Class.

A time lapse video of the construction of a new Class EEE ship. As the recent engine room flooding suggests, getting the construction right is not as easy as it looks.

“The wireways were not properly sealed” gave me the impression of missing O-rings around data cables, but that is obviously not right. Minor leaks like that would not have flooded the engine room — the pumps could have kept ahead of it. Possibly the thruster was electric, and its power cables were the ones that weren’t sealed? That would suggest much more massive holes in the watertight bulkheads. Still, another example of poor design/construction practice in the marine industry — and from a leading shipyard with a good reputation.

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